Game 4 preview: Final lineups still a mystery, Couture “all good,” Quick’s positioning — and more

SAN JOSE — Neither coach was ready to tip his hand as far as any lineup changes for Game 4.

There were strong, strong indications in El Segundo yesterday that Kyle Clifford was going to be back in the lineup for the Kings after recovering from an upper body injury. But Darryl Sutter wasn’t ready to disclose that after the morning skate.

And while Todd McLellan continued to talk about the possibility of using Jason Demers at both defense and forward to replace the injured Marty Havlat, Demers skated at neither position when the team took its rushes. Instead, it was Tim Kennedy back in the lineup cenetering Andrew Desjardins and Bracken Kearns on the fourth line while Demers skated as a fourth d-pair with Matt Tennyson.

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McLellan did say that if he does use Demers at forward, that decision is not tied to the successful move of Brent Burns to that same position.

“No. It’s two completely didfferent cases,” the Sharks coach said. “We can’t get into making this a habit.”

And, no, the coaching staff did not review the 2010 video of Demers’s last games as a forward. Too long ago.

Guess we find out when they announce the scratches shortly before the anthem begins tonight.

****Logan Couture skated this morning for the first time since Saturday night when his overtime goal gave the Sharks their first victory of their series Saturday night, then declared himself “all good” with no
after-effects from the leg injury that caused him to miss most of the second period.

With two days off between games, players had a little extra time to get over their “bumps and bruises” and Couture said having the extra 24 hours was beneficial.

“It helped me and I’m sure it helped some other guys as well – their team and our team,” Couture said. “Rest is big, especially this time of the year.”

McLellan said Couture could have skated Monday, but “it made no sense to put him on the ice. He looked good this morning and he’s excited about playing. I don’t think it’s an issue or factor at all.”

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****Sutter prefaced his remarks by saying he wasn’t “whining or bitching or anything,” then talked about how his goalie, Jonathan Quick, positions himself on the ice and the way the refs have been calling things in this series as well as Chicago-Detroit.

“It’s just that he plays at the top of the crease and the last two series we played against goalies that play more in the blue paint. What is the rule, that’s all?,” Sutter said before referring to a disallowed goal by the Blackhawks when it was ruled a Chicago forward was in the crease and interfered with Red Wing netminder Jimmy Howard.

“We were watching Chicago and Detroit last night,” Sutter said. “Do I think it’s a goal or do they think it’s a goal, it’s all perspective. Personally, I know the style of our goalie and what he needs to get across and it’s a little different.”

Quick was an unhappy netminder after the Sharks won Game 3 in overtime on Saturday night, confronted both refs and earned a game misconduct for abusing the officials. No carryover punishment from the NHL and Sutter dismissed the idea that maybe Quick got a little too emotional and went over the top.

Nor do the Sharks expect to be able to exploit Quick’s unhappiness in Game 4.

“When you lose a game, you’re frustrated,” Tommy Wingels said. “We play this game to win, and you put so much effort in and when you don’t get the success you want, for whatever reasons, you become frustrated.

“I’m sure that was the case for him,” he continued. “As any competitive guy is, I’m sure he’s champing at the bit to get the game started tonight and get the chance to win again.”

****Couture said the series started with some genuine animosity that has only increased with each game. But, hey, it’s the playoffs.

“It started in Game 1. You don’t like them, they don’t like you. They’re a California team as well. We saw them in the playoffs two years ago and not much has changed between the two teams,” Couture said. “There’s just a hatred there. Same way it was in the first series against Vancouver.

“It gets a little bit worse each game,” he added. “That’s the way this game is.”

****Both San Jose goals in that Game 3 overtime win came on the power play. That’s good news for special teams, of course, but the flip side is the Sharks need to do better at even strength.

“Well, we didn’t score,” McLellan said when asked about his team’s 5-on-5 effort. “There’s no guarantee you’re going to continue to get multiple goals on the power play on any given night. We have to find ways to scooe goals at even strength. You take the power plays out of it, they win 1-0, they’re up 3-0 and we’re in big trouble.

“Five on five I liked our play,” he added. “I liked the fact we did create some chances, but it has to go over the goal line for us to have success.”

****McLellan had an interesting — and telling — qualifier when he was asked about the recent play of Scott Gomez.

“Scotty’s comfortable. He’s not an uncomfortable guy,” said McLellan, an understatement in describing a player who seems to be pretty loose in any situation. “He’s calm, he has a real good demeanor about him.

“I like Sccotty,” the coach continued. “I really like Scotty Gomez. Let me clarify: I really like Scotty Gomez in the role he’s playing right now. If we had to put him up and in a different role or diminish his play, I’m not sure that would always be the case. but what he’s giving us right now has been really valuable to our team.

“There’s enough mics on the bench now and players mic’d up, I’m sure you get a whisper of what his meaning on the bench is and how he controls, not controls, but influences certain groups of players the right way.”

Gomez has been getting about 16:00 ice time most nights, including power play duty. Reading between the lines, you get the feeling McLellan isn’t ready to give him any more and that Gomez probably would not be happy getting any less. All part of the balancing act.

****The Sharks will be collecting donations for Red Cross aid to the victims of those Oklahoma tornadoes. Think cash, not clothing or canned food.

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.

So Quick got a game misconduct at end of game 3. Aren’t the rules pretty clear, that’s a suspension?

C

A li’l whiney Daryll. Just tell us how much room outside of the crease does Quick need.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

cap-o-133, if you’re right about the $75K for content, that comes out to $195.82 per word (383 words according to Microsoft). Truth can be expensive, no?

Scott No2

I believe it’s 3 Game Misconducts (in a season) = 1 game suspension.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

“It started in Game 1. You don’t like them, they don’t like you. They’re a California team as well. We saw them in the playoffs two years ago and not much has changed between the two teams,” Couture said. “There’s just a hatred there. Same way it was in the first series against Vancouver.

“It gets a little bit worse each game,” he added. “That’s the way this game is.”

Love it – all Couture has to do to win the Derek Sanderson Trophy is skip the handshake line!

g-bum-man

This series may affect Logan’s friendship with Doughty…until they both get a half a case of Labatt’s down their throats, then all will be forgotten. I have heard that Hockey is like Rugby. Bad memories disappear after a few drinks. After all, the trophy is a Cup. And what is a cup used for???

g-bum-man

Answer: drinking or protecting the family jewels!

SJGR8WHITE

I like how we are playing and our mind set. Here’s to a great game tonight! Let’s Tie this thing up Boys!!! Drop the puck already!!! Great Stuff DP as always!!
LGSDI!!!

Beer League Rocks

Really looking forward to tonight’s game. Love Logan’s attitude. The comment section has been much more pleasant to read, for quite awhile. Go out there and get another win in the tank boys and even this series up!!! Go Sharks!!!!

MW

Very excited for tonight’s game. We’ve been getting our money’s worth this post-season. Every game has been a nail-biter. Just hope all the referee whining (both fan bases) and gift-wrapped 5 on 3′s are over and done with.

Just…..play……hockey.

GO SHARKS

Tom (fm Quinzee)

g-bum-man, you mean LaBarff’s? That stuff was (is?) weasel-pee…

Dunlap

So whiny Darryl & Johnny think it’s unfair that a player screens their goalie outside the blue paint. Ummmmmmmm…ok….I guess we cheated then. And they are made they got called for freight training our goalie? Hmmmm…ok…guess Nemo shouldn’t have been standing there in his crease when a King felt like charging through there. The Sharks really need to play fair for Pete’s sake. These LaLaLanders are royalty after all!

That Bearded Puck

2 game misconducts in the playoffs for a suspension.

puckace

Get to watch this one tonight. Can’t wait! Love playoff hockey.

Here’s to hoping Quick is more interested in who’s in “his spot” than watching the puck and being in the right position on the ice. He’s a great goalie, so anything that gets him off his game works in the Sharks favor. Amazing that the Sharks are doing so well with all the injuries in the forward corps. Not sure previous Shark PO teams would have adapted as well.

GSGDI!

And Go Thunder Go Damn It! The Stockton Thunder is down 0-2 in the ECHL Kelly Cup Finals.

Dunlap

Sad thing is that all the. Trying to the media works. The refs will try to make The Kings happy and will not get BS goalie interference calls against sharks mad/or disallow a goal. It worked when The Nucks whined about faceoff “cheating”, as if that’s even possible. The Networks/League want the bigger market/better known team/defending champs/ more glamorous city to win. It’s not a huge conspiracy nor are there memos to the refs necessarily, but it is known and affects the way the games are officiated on and off ice. Don t believe me? Then why was Raffi Torres suspended for all games against Kings for a legal to punishable by a minor penalty hit? Sutterhealth whined about that too saying it wasn’t fair be cause The Kings lost a better player than we did. That was a douchebag insult sour grapes thing to say not to mention untrue as Raffi was just as, if not more important to Sharks as Still to them. The Sharks didn’t whine about the atrocious delay of game call on Pickles. BTW fans are free to whine bitch moan make excuses be homers assign blame point fingers be hypocrites etc….we are FANatics after all! Or is it FINatics? Or FINaddicts? Ooooh I think I just came up with a cool blog or handle name!

Johnny King

Go. Kings. Go.

Johnny San Jose

I think it’s pretty impressive that we’ve played as well as we have against the Kings being that we’ve been down a top 6 forward (Havlat), a PK stallion (Burrish) and a NHL regular defenseman (Demers). Throw Couture and Hannan’s absence for part of game 3 and they still beat LA.

I was laughing last game as I looked at the bench and it looked like a rec league not having enough guys show up for a late game with all of the injuries throughout the game.

luv me some shark steak

Shark steak bbq at the tank tonight

Dirty

Great post, DP! Go Sharks!

Stevo

Is everyone going to stay on this thread, or are y’all going to Mr. Pollak’s “back to the future” blog post — from yesterday?

spooky

man, however i slice it being down 2-1 in series feels still like a huge hole.

Phat Stat Phil

JSJ @ 17

It’s amazing we’ve done as well as we have all year with as little scoring as we’ve had. Apart from Minnesota and the Islanders, we have the lowest goal differential of any team in the playoffs. Given that the Islanders are Eastern Conference, you can’t really count them as a comparison either.

Only Ottawa scored fewer goals than we did of the teams that made it to the playoffs.

Credit great goaltending and great defense — things we knew about the team anyway.

I’d be more worried about losing Havlat except that we’ve done fine for most of the season without him. The only players we really have with scoring touch are Patty, Pavs, Cooch, and Boyle. I take Jumbo out of that list given his well documented problems shooting the puck.

If any of those guys go down, we have serious problems.

Side note: Surely you saw the bench in the Ottawa-Montreal series? That was the mother of all empty benches. I remember Silfverberg coming on to the bench, walking down a few slots, and sitting down. At the time I wondered “Why even bother walking down that far? You’re going to go out again next shift.”

Just a reminder again, that, for some inexplicable reason, the TV broadcast is actually ahead of the Sharks radio broadcast – so you can pause the TV to synch up with the radio and get out of having to listen to the NBC announcers.

I wish Rusi and Bakes would realize there are now a lot of people who are watching TV and listening to them on the radio, and adjust their pace accordingly (feel free to tweet Baker). I use the sound of a hit on the boards to get the exact synch up.

Let’s go boys, win tonight and we’ll go from here!

Topcat

The Kings will fight like hell, may get some ref calls, so it is time for Nemo to steal a game in this series. Kings have not tested him that much. We MUST score the 1st goal (fans know that the Sharks are almost always ‘in’ when they score first. And of course, no Stuart like giveaways. Make the Kings beat us. So far, except for PERHAPS game 1 when Quick stole his game, they have not beaten us. We must strongly fore check to waste Kopitar line time and continue to wear them down.

puckace

#16 Go. Kings. Go. Home. Tied. Two. All.

Fixed that for you.

Phat Stat Phil

By the way, I haven’t posted line matches in a while. I’m making these determinations by who we put out against whom on a face off.

I started counting forward lines and defense lines separately as I’ve heard some teams say that they only match defense-to-forward lines. It’s interesting to see some of the defense-to-defense matchups, though those seem like they’re probably more representative of the amount of ice time that those defensemen get.

SCSharksFan

Sacto -

I’m pretty sure Dan & Jamie know people are doing exactly as you are saying… I think I even heard Dan suggest it in one of his radio broadcasts not too long after the first round ended. Something to the affect of “you can’t listen to Randy & Drew, but you can still listen to us… just turn the TV to mute and tune in.”

I don’t think the radio broadcast can be “adjusted” on their end… time delay on purpose I believe? You have to have TIVO or DVR to pause the TV broadcast. Unfortunately I don’t… I suffer… oh well…

GSGDI!!!!

PlasticPuck14

Looking fwd to drawing even tonight!!! Must win situation boys, let’s do this!

Looking for Burnsie to put one past Quick!

GSDI

Renoshark

Phil @ 22:

It’s kind of an anomaly but our year was kind of broken into 2 different segments. The Sharks team prior to the trade deadline and the Sharks team after the deadline. Two completely different teams and identities. Do you have any stats on our per game scoring and goal differential before and after? Just curious.

Topcat

David just tweeted that Chris Rooney and Brad Meier are refs tonite, who we have not had yet in this series. I don’t remember anything about them, so that is GOOD news.

VIN

It’s hilarious that most on this blog were celebrating the fact that Quick lost his temper last game, when that was the worst possible thing that could happen for sharks fans. Really bad idea.

I doubt you’re going be very happy when you see the final score tonight. See you back in LA down 3-1.

Go-Kings-Go!!

Renoshark

Phil also at 22:

I agree on the goal tending and defense but you also need to throw in the tempo, speed and a major emphasis on improving our North-South game. Our open-ice playmaking, transition game and better overall team speed is as good as its been in 2 years.

Hope the boys in teal eat a few bowls of frijoles and then park their butts in Quick’s face. The more they screen him and annoy him the less effective he will be.

DeanH

It is funny that Quick lost his temper BUT he has had two days to regain his composure!! Although we love to mock him he has a history of boucing back after completely losing his cool or melting down and giving up back goals, so I don’t expect anything but his best game tonight.

At the same time, the Sharks have shown they can beat the Kings and if they stick to the game plan, they should go back to the Staples Center all tied up.

Go Sharks and remember THIS IS YOUR TIME!!!

Martin Brody

@17 JSJ wrote,

I was laughing last game as I looked at the bench and it looked like a rec league not having enough guys show up for a late game with all of the injuries throughout the game.

This can`t be good for the Sharks if the series goes the distance to seven games.